Here are four points:
1. The direct treatment costs associated with global dental diseases were valued at $298 billion each year, reaching an average of 4.6 percent of global health expenditures. Direct costs were calculated based on a systematic approach.
2. Indirect costs such as productivity losses amounted to $144 billion each year. These costs are linked to economic losses with the range of the 10 most common global causes of death.
3. Researchers used an approach suggested by the World Health Organization’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health to determine indirect costs. The approach used values of gross domestic product per capita as provided by the International Monetary Fund and oral burden of disease estimates from the US Global Burden of Disease Study.
4. The study indicates the global need to compare data on dental treatment costs, disease-specific absenteeism from work and school in addition to costs of oral diseases relating to quality of life.
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